This post aims to 1. provide some context for the UT kerfuffle itself, 2. cast some light on how people and organizations successfully astro-turf social media campaigns, 3. provide reasons why members of the media ought to be a bit more careful in how they report on the online/digital/new media horse race, and 4. offer some thoughts on what comes next.

1. Kerfuffle Context
First, some background on what the heck this "Save Bill Powers" stuff is all about.

There's the very, very macro context, which is basically that the higher education establishment has become sclerotic and out of touch, tuition has skyrocketed well beyond inflation, and the next major economic shock in America could easily be the higher ed bubble bursting. It's an iceberg straight ahead and we're the Titanic, but there's still time to steer the ship into safer waters. If we don't, though, yikes.

If all of this context (and the above context is certainly just the Cliff's Notes version this story) was the collective geopolitical navigation of the Great Powers in the 1930s, then Paul Burka's apocalyptic, all-caps Texas Monthlyblog post was the bombing of Pearl Harbor:

2. How to Astroturf a Social Media Campaign
This is where it gets interesting. While most of the press coverage has focused on the numbers of people who "joined" a Facebook group called "I STAND WITH BILL POWERS," at least one member of the press has hinted that something else might be afoot here. The Texas Tribune's Reeve Hamilton tweeted a note of caution:

While I already suspected that the anonymously sourced, (and still uncorroborated) BurkaBlog post and the apparent organic response to it was all a little too convenient, Reeve Hamilton's tweet further piqued my interest, so I explored it further. Along with some others in the higher ed movement, it quickly became apparent that a handful of really sharp young folks, working with some powerful organizations with ample resources, synthetically engineered what appeared to be a natural groundswell.

Okay, that's been known to happen organically, I guess. People just happen to read an unsubstantiated, rumor-mongering blog post at 7:30 pm on a Wednesday night and just happen to buy a domain name that just happens to become the focal point of a public relations campaign, within an hour and a half. And they just happen to buy the domain name anonymously. It just happens all the time.

Meanwhile, the issue positioning, keywords, and instructions went out via Facebook, from Natalie Butler of the "Young Texans":

Immediately after the group was created, Meyerson added two admins to the group:

And they all started adding members to the group.

In order to boost its "groups," Facebook allows individuals to not only invite someone to a group but actually add him or her to it, whether he or she is even interested. Many Facebookers, even young digital natives, aren't engaged enough to even notice they've been added without their permission. And many Facebookers aren't savvy enough to know how to leave a group after they've been "Facejacked." Some people tend to fear leaving the group and insulting their friends who added them. Needless to say, spam-adding folks en masse to Facebook groups they may or may not agree with is not cool, and it's definitely not true digital virality in any organic sense. Indeed, this guy showed how easy it is to add all of your Facebook friends to a group in only about 20 seconds:

That's not a movement. That's a line of code. And even if you don't use a javascript code (some browsers have blocked scripts like that since the video was made) and have to manually click on each of your friends to invite them, you can still spend just minutes to add hundreds or even thousands of people. To quickly get 10,000 people in a group, you really only need a half dozen young people (who tend to have a lot of Facebook "friends") spam-adding their contacts.

Bad etiquette or not, "Facejacking" is how the "I STAND WITH BILL POWERS" group grew and continues to grow. If you go in to the group, click "about," then click to view members by date added, you can find the screenshots below yourself. Scroll down to the beginning (it's kind of an annoying process), and you'll see that nearly everyone was spam-added by just a couple of individuals (these first 120 or so members are in reverse chronological order):

See all of those "added" folks? The overwhelming majority: added, not invited. And all by two individuals.

But surely they just seeded it a bit, and it became an organic, sustaining organism of its own shortly thereafter, right? Not really. Yes, others got in on the spam-adding action, but look at a sample from Friday:

Lots of spam-added folks. Not really much evidence of a true newsworthy movement.

Keshav Rajagopalan, who was UT’s student body president in 2008-2009, said he started the Facebook group last night after Burka’s post was published. He said thousands have asked to be part of the group. He worked with Powers closely during his time as student body president, but thinks that many UT students who did not know him personally recognize him as a leader that cares about them.

Wait. We just saw that Rachel Meyerson started the group, and that nearly all the early members were spam-added by other people. Indeed, Rajagopolan was personally responsible for a great deal of the spam adding. "Thousands have asked to be part of the group" is just plain deceitful.

Again, a page (rather than a group) doesn't allow you to spam-add. People can be invited, but they can't be added without their permission.

So, the Save Bill Powers page was essentially a ghost town, and essentially the entirety of the social media operation to that point was astro-turfed by a P.R. firm. Jennifer Sarver of said P.R. firm tweeted:

By 5 p.m. Thursday, a Facebook group called "I Stand With Bill Powers" had more than 9,800 members, although some whose names were listed said in subsequent posts that they had been included by friends without their knowledge and against their wishes.

Bottom line: the widely reported "I stand with Bill Powers" Facebook effort was not an organic display of support. It was, however, publicly held out by the organizers as organic.

It’s one thing to astro-turf, as that happens sometimes in the public relations field-- it now ought to be clear how easy it is to do that. But it’s another thing to astro-turf and lie and say it was organic, then not only passively allow the media to inaccurately portray it as organic but actively feed that inaccuracy with untrue statements.

As for members of the media, more of them should turn a far more critical eye to claims of social media prowess based on what could very well be pure astro-turf.

4. What's Next?

Moving forward, the higher ed reform movement will continue, and the status quo guardians will continue as well. The UT faculty this week voted to support their boss, although one professor abstained:

English professor Snehal Shingavi was the only member who abstained from voting at the meeting. Shingavi said it was dangerous for the faculty’s support of Powers to be coupled with tuition increases.

“There is an unfortunate narrative in Texas that presents faculty as living off the fat of tuition,” Shingavi said. “It’s important not to connect these two. I abstained from voting because I understood the importance of having a unified vote.”

Meanwhile, the target of most of the negative social media content on the "Save Bill Powers" page(s) and "I STAND WITH BILL POWERS" group, Governor Perry, is not going away quietly on this issue:

"I don't think it's any big secret that I'm for keeping the cost of education down, so my suspicion is that no one in Texas thinks that I'm for tuition growth," Perry said. "It's a good message to send to the citizens of the state that we're not going to just have tuition increasing with no regard for what's happening economically for the citizens of the state."

And, ultimately, that's why this "movement" smelled so fishy from the get-go. You're telling me that students are rallying around the guy who wants to raise their tuition? Yeah, no. It was always a fabricated social media cause via public relations firm. It was well done, no doubt-- a great example of why my alma mater pays them so much to do what they do. But it was never a truly viral or organic cause.

As for Bill Powers, can someone please explain to me what exactly are his accomplishments, or, alternatively, what exactly are his goals, ideas, values, or policies that are worthy of support?

Under President Powers, tuition has climbed over 23% in just 4 years (15% over inflation, as measured by the consumer price index). Average net cost per student (taking into account financial aid) has gone up 33% from 2005 to 2009, from $4534 to $6052 (the System stopped reporting this figure in 2010). In the same period, spending on administrative salary has gone up 86% at the university level, 55% in the College of Liberal Art and 45% in the College of Business, to take two typical examples of the Colleges. Spending on faculty salaries have gone up 21% in the same period (13% over inflation), with no increase in student learning, as measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment (in which UT ranks in the 23rd percentile of its peer group).

President Powers' hand-picked student 'advisory' panels (whose discussions and votes have not been released to the public, despite the Open Meeting act) have simply rubber-stamped the views of Powers and his allies. For example, two years ago, after key lawmakers (including Senator Ellis) announced that any increase in tuition above 4% would lead to a reconsideration of tuition deregulation, Powers' panel miraculously determined that UT "needed" an increase of exactly 3.95%. Amazing coincidence!

Change in rankings:
US News #44 in 2008, #45 in 2012. A drop of one position, paid for by at least a 33% increase in costs to students!

On March 14, Washington Post reporter Daniel de Vise, in his piece "Trying to assess learning gives colleges their own test anxiety," reported that the University of Texas at Austin ranks very low in achievement of student learning. "For learning gains from freshman to senior year," writes de Vise, "UT ranked in the 23rd percentile among like institutions. In other words, 77 percent of universities with similar students performed better." The Post obtained this data through a public records request. The standardized test was conducted by the Collegiate Learning Assessment.

Prof. Richard Arum, a New York University sociologist, "reviewed UT's results at the request of the Post." He found that "seniors have spent four years there, and the scores [on student learning] have not gone up that much."

That all being said, the faster we can bring this back to a discussion about ideas rather than a quarrel between players, the better. For students. For parents. For alumni. For employers. For taxpayers. For everyone. Right now, the easy fixation is on Rick Perry vs. Bill Powers, but the ideas they are talking about are important. Tuition. Affordability. Accountability. Opportunity. The American Dream. Texas as America's shining state on a hill.

Do we accept the broken status quo, or do we reform our higher education system in Texas?

Posted by Will Franklin · 16 May 2012 02:40 PM

Comments

Excellent analysis of a classic new media marketing campaign, and I'm glad to see it. I hope that more and more people (especially, more people in upper management of any organization) will stand back and begin to realize that virtual is still virtual and does not translate into reality - much less, usually, into any meaningful action - when it comes to internet "cause marketing". At the moment it only works because organizations haven't figured out that ignoring these campaigns will cause them to dissipate - and the more companies that ignore them, the more rapidly they will fade.

It's known that Gov. Perry is a Republican, and it's a fairly safe bet that the majority of the students involved in this kerfuffle are Democrats, or lean that direction. Does anyone know which party President Powers is registered with?

Given his stand on tuition hikes, and the concurrent improvement in education provided (that is, no improvement at all), I'll eat my hat if he isn't a Democrat.

Posted by: gus3 at May 16, 2012 09:52 PM

Well, astoturfing has been going on for years though social networking like Facebook has changed the mechanics of it somewhat. Marketing and PR firms have been doing this for quite some time as have political organizations. Probably the oldest astroturf PR agency is Fenton Communications. Fenton practically invented it and took it to a very high level of organization.

In political astroturfing, David Axelrod is probably the "godfather" of astroturf.

People beware. "Grass roots" campaigns aren't always what they seem. Their mistake was in making one huge facebook group. They should have followed the Fenton model and made several different smaller groups to make it look more like many spontaneous uprisings.

Posted by: George B at May 17, 2012 02:04 AM

The regents increased tuition at all system schools but UT-Austin. As Chancellor Cigarroa noted in a recent press release, tuition has gone up (all approved by the regents) because the state has cut its support to all our public universities.

Your flawed, poorly written study of the rise of the Save Bill Powers movement only documents how passionate people really are about the person and his accomplishments.

Bob Koons' critiques are interesting but could be applied to every university. The problem is that most students today jump through the hoops without really trying to learn or apply themselves. The student is the one primarily responsible for their education, they aren't sponges waiting to be filled with inspiration. Their failure to learn and grow is their own. College is not kindergarten.

Sadly, you fail to note how UT (and A&M) have the best graduation rates and best academic achievements in the state. They also have the highest tuition rates and most accomplished professors and research programs. The universities with the lowest graduation rates also have lower tuition and less commitment to research. This holds true across the nation.

Tuition began to rise about 10 years ago when the state deregulated tuition. Perry signed that legislation into law and really approved it because it meant the state could invest less money and transfer the financial burden to students themselves.

Nice try at research Will. Too bad you squandered your time at UT to learn how to do it well.

Posted by: Brad at May 17, 2012 11:44 AM

Note to commenters here: I am pretty intolerant of lies, especially about myself. So if you post lies, your comment will be deleted. It's my blog. That's how I run things here. Critiques are great, insults are borderline, but I simply don't allow false statements. If you want to lie, especially about me, go post it elsewhere.

For the record, I don't work for Governor Rick Perry. I did formerly, but I don't now (and haven't for a while). Nice try, though, folks.

Charles, didn't anyone tell you you're supposed to start your comments with "I am an adamant xxxx, usually voting straight ticket xxxx"? You know, like you start your letters with "I never thought it would happen to me".

Posted by: jeannebodine at May 17, 2012 12:16 PM

"Given his stand on tuition hikes, and the concurrent improvement in education provided (that is, no improvement at all), I'll eat my hat if he isn't a Democrat."

gus3, enjoy your hat. Powers is a Republican.

Posted by: james at May 17, 2012 01:56 PM

The campaign supporting Powers and UT is more than just a facebook group. While the facebook group tactics would seem dishonest, I've seen first hand the support that's sprung up for President Powers and UT on forums, twitter, blogs and other social networks.

Posted by: Chris at May 17, 2012 02:31 PM

HA I am on that list as I was invited by Keshav and then accepted the invite and became "added by Keshav"...there aren't any special tricks there, just the fact that I accepted his invite and facebook is showing Keshav as the the source of my invite.

Posted by: Added at May 17, 2012 05:34 PM

What did Powers accomplish? Increasing the diversity office from 6 to 350, all of them meddling in 15 departments (from a 2008 email). It's also easy to spread your message when you can use your email list with everyone's UT work addresses (Texas Alumnus I believe. I don't have it in front of me right now).

Posted by: D at May 18, 2012 06:10 AM

Excellent research! Powers has always been all about raising tuition, because to him, expensive things are cooler and more people want them. Just look at what he did to the Law School tuition when he was dean - raised it deliberately to make us look more "elite". He's welcome to do that when it comes to his own house, car, etc. But he needs to stop spending taxpayer money for such foolishness, and stop making college even more expensive for the people he was hired to serve. UT can't get rid of him fast enough, imo.

Posted by: Tari at May 21, 2012 12:38 PM

Great, well researched article. The propagandizing for Bill Powers hit the UT sports blogs a week or two ago and was obviously part of an organized effort. If Powers is spending UT money on this campaign to keep his job, he needs to lose his job sooner rather than later.

The $10k college education is a brilliant idea, is doable with available technology, and will be a huge boost for Texas. Those resisting it are fat cat academics who don't want their gravy train derailed.